Real thoughts on life, living in a complicated world and everything in between.

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There are days when I have a moment and no one is looking when I sit down and sob…for our children….for our country…for our world. I want to throw my hands up and say “Fuck all of it. One person cant make a difference. Its all futile.” Someone said to me last night that I was “pissing into the wind”. I thought about that….and it struck me that not one person in the camp that got to keep their baby warm through the night and keep their child from freezing to death (Such a way to die- freezing to death in your own home. Can you imagine the anguish these parents must feel? ) would look at me and tell me not to help them out and that I shouldn’t bother because “This is too big- you should leave it up to the UN”.

Here is the thing…it IS the biggest thing in the world. EVERY SINGLE life is THE MOST IMPORTANT THING INTHE WORLD. Everything matters more than anything else. Every breath that is drawn is sacred. We have been given the privilege (and YES it is a privilege) to be here in these bodies…in this moment…in these circumstances. It is our duty as children of this universe to stand up over and over and over again to speak for those who have had their voices taken from them. It is our duty to be the keepers and caretakers of this land and all that swim, fly and walk upon it. It is our duty to be fearless warriors for those who can not fight because they are too busy trying to survive. It is also our duty to love…(yes LOVE,) all beings on this earth..even the ones that spew hate, greed,fear. Even in the midst of our fight we have to know that we are doing this for them too.

I am thankful for all of the warriors out there who stand up and use whatever tools they have been given to fight for those who can not. Some use their voices, some their passion, some their action, some their patience, some their connection with the earth, some with their connection with humanity, some with their connection with the divinity around them. So today children of the universe- pick up your tool, know your heart, fight for those who can not and fight for those who are angry at us for doing so. There is no time to say that nothing matters. Know that YOU and no one else WILL SAVE THE WORLD. Know that in your heart. There is no room for hesitation or fear. We have a job to do.

As I sit here in my studio on the shortest day of the year, my thoughts turn to the winter solstice, and how this year this powerful day feels so much more profound than it ever has. Today is the day when the dark for just a moment, has won out over the light.

I love this sacred day and have always celebrated it in the way that speaks to me…. with ritual and quiet reflection. I light a single candle and sit in the darkness with it in front of me. I gaze at this candle, watching the light flicker and pierce the darkness with its glow. No matter how many times I sit in this ritual, I am always struck by just how much light one little candle can give off. Sitting with my back to the dark, I always feel a sense of peace and gratitude that the dark is behind me (though I know that it is there) and that I moved through the dark and without fear and did not succumb to the sadness while I watched it eat the light little by little. In that moment I turn away from the candle and sit with my back to the light and stare into the inkiness of the night. I bow to this space filled with things I can not see, things that I do not understand but that made me slow down and look inward to find my own light to lead the way.

Right now for so many of us we are living in what feels to the longest night of the year. We look around and it seems that the darkness has won out over the light. Perhaps though it has not…. perhaps these times are the winter solstice of the human soul. These are the times when we light the candle. These are the times when we reach out to our global family to become that light that pierces through the darkness. Though we have been watching the dark eat the light little by little, and it feels like the dark has won out over the light, remember the solstice…this is only a moment. These are the times we look inward to find our light, our connection with the universe, our true divine nature. When we do this we see that WE are the light that leads the way in the dark. If we sit with our back to the dark, we should feel a sense of peace that we moved through the dark without fear and did not succumb to the sadness.

So thank you for being the candle in the inky blackness during the winter solstice of humanity’s collective soul. Thank you for shining the light of the our true divine nature with bravery and clarity. Know that your light will be seen all the way across the globe in a small refugee camp that has been living in the dark for so long that they had fallen into despair because they thought that the light would never again shine on them. Thank you for reminding them that one flame can create more light in the dark than they could ever imagine. Thank you for giving them hope.

Every living being is an engine geared to the wheelwork of the universe. Though seemingly affected only by its immediate surrounding, the sphere of external influence extends to infinite distance. -Nikola Tesla

The other day I sat and watched my my son playing in the sandbox. He would play for a bit, look up at the sky, smile, feel the wind on his face and continue to dig. A butterfly flew by and he began to speak to it “Hello, butterfly. How are? You are so beautiful.” He looked at the the path the butterfly flew and as it landed on my leg he said ” Look at the butterfly, mama! It loves you!” In that moment neither he nor I had any doubt that the butterfly loved me. We were all there together sharing in that perfect moment. Looking back on it, I asked myself why that was the perfect moment. Why was that simple moment the purest moment of joy for me? The answer was so simple….at that moment I was sitting with my son in the truth of all things….that every energetic being in the universe is divine.

A few days later a soul sick, lost, angry man who was filled with fear and self loathing lost and in unspeakable amounts of pain, made the horrific choice to make others suffer like he was suffering. He walked into a nightclub in Orlando and murdered 49 people in cold blood. I like the rest of the world was heartbroken, stunned and ripped apart by the senseless loss of so many lights in this world. How do we look at an act like this and ever begin to understand? How do we find compassion for a soul that is that rotten from darkness and hate and that is capable of the most evil and vile of deeds? HOW CAN WE SAY THAT ALL THINGS ARE DIVINE WHEN THINGS LIKE THIS HAPPEN IN THE WORLD? I woke up the day after the shootings in Orlando and was struggling with that very question. I was angry that this was happening in our world…that this was continuing to happen in our world. The anger built inside of me until it felt like it was turning into poison in my veins. At that moment a butterfly landed on my arm. I looked down at it and remembered that moment in the sandbox and sat down and wrote this…..

“I have moments when the weight and sadness of it all feels like it may crush me…but then I look around see the truth, breathe and connect with the divinity that is the universe….this divinity that is all part of us no matter how many of us have forgotten. The only way we can shift the way we are moving forward as a species on this planet is to remember that every living thing is a being of the universe.

As long as we try to convince ourselves that we are separate in order to maintain our manufactured illusion that we have greater purpose than anything else in the universe does, we will always be lost…. for the truth is all there is and all there will ever be.

When we hate someone for their race, creed, color- we hate ourselves. When we turn our backs to someone in need- we are turning our backs on ourselves. When we pollute the great mother that we live on we are killing ourselves. When we no longer see the divinity and grace that is in others we no longer see the divinity and grace that is in us.

This is not a war to be fought. There is no winning…. There is only understanding. We will die and our bones will become part of the earth and our breath part of the sky. Every. Single. One. Of. Us…. Our energy will move back into the universe and will become something else…. A star. A tree. A child in Africa thousands of years ago (time is an illusion).

So ask yourself- what are you going to do? Are you going to continue to give into the paradigm of fear and judgement, expectations and anger that has been created to control us and divide us? Or are you going to make the choice listen to what you and all things understand in the deepest parts of all and is the only truth…. We are one. We are the same. Everything is the same. Division is an illusion. We are the universe.”

Sitting in the truth, finding compassion and empathy is easy when we are sitting in a sandbox looking at butterflies. When it is needed the most, when division, fear, anger and hate is pushing down around us smothering us with its darkness, It is the hardest to find or to even remember it exists.

But we can not continue down this path of division. There is only one outcome.We continue to rip each other apart until there is nothing left. We have been holding onto this idea of separateness for so long that we have become blind to the most basic understanding in the universe. Nature does not exist in self imposed exile…but mankind does. I ask you today to remember even for a moment who you are- I then ask even for a moment you remember who all of us are….”We are one. We are the same. Everything is the same. Division is an illusion. We are the universe.”Be brave in your compassion and connection. It is hard….but be a warrior for the truth. Be a keeper of the light. Stand up in the face of division and anger and stare it down, knowing that you are looking at your shadow for it is in you too. Say this simple truth with every breath as you remember who you are….”We are one. We are the same. Everything is the same. Division is an illusion. We are the Universe.”

She is rising…can you feel it? She is the crone that is climbing out of the mountain, the moss coating her ancient bones as she claws at the cobwebs around her eyes, drawing blood and letting it rain in her rage on the valley. She is the hag swelling out of the sea… hair green and slick, mouth open wide, screaming the siren scream that has all that hear her falling to their knees.as they press their heads against the rocks with arms over their heads trembling in her rage. She is the harpy slashing the sky with her talons; her wings of silver and fire… a tempest that inhales all she sees and hurls it out of her, shattering it into a thousand pieces on the ground below. She is Kali swirling in a cyclone of fire that reaches her fingers out and burns all that she touches to ashes and twisted half memories of empires that should have fallen long ago.

She is here. She is pulling her children close to her, touching their fevered brows and stroking their distorted limbs that have become twisted and bent from thousands of years of anger and rage. She is holding them tight as they flail and fight scared and confused, not understanding why she will not let go…their brains addled and delirious from sickness and decay. She is wrapping their eyes with cloths steeped in yarrow and lavender, holding the healing balm so close that they lose their sight…for their sight was no longer real, it had been clouded by bricks and metal monoliths and monuments built to honor power and fear. Monuments built to gods that sit upon thrones of bones and ashes, while rivers of stagnant blood flow under their feet. She is soothing the swollen bellies of her sick children bloated from greed and avarice, feeding them honied drinks made by the brothers and sisters who hid in the shadows for so long; the quiet tending the land, singing with the bees, and stroking the animals when the rest of their siblings were being infected with forgetting.

She never left, do you honor that? She brings the green hope that moves across the world, finding places to deposit its love in the middle of even the darkest corners of fearful hiding. She pulls calves slick with blood out of wombs of life and licks the babies clean with her long tongue. She breathes the zephyrs of the north over the steppes and the plains and kisses the ones standing guard over her marshes and fields with thanks and gratitude. She holds the moon to her breasts and shines its light upon the silvery tides that hold her children made of foam and lapis. She laughs and shakes the sky with her wings of grace and hope as she touches the feathers that float from the heavens and wake up her slumbering masses.

She is destroyer, mother, maiden….and she is all of us and she will not be forgotten.

We are the warriors for the light. Our eyes see through the darkness and we catch the movement in the shadows. We see the faint shimmer coming off the figures huddling in the corners retreating, swallowing themselves whole. We see the light pushing through the cracks, oozing through the fissures. We feel the pulsation of the light like the beat of our own heart and it calls to us with every breath. Some of us question why we have to wake up every morning and suit up in our armor of ferocity and scream our battle cries. Some of us stopped questioning lifetimes ago. Some of us are fresh and new- young recruits ready to run out onto the battlefield not yet scarred from lifetimes of fighting. Some of us are old war dogs so tired, our arms silver with thousands of years of scars.

We are the warriors for the light. We feel the screams of children shaking our souls and we hold lifetimes of faint memories of children that we have birthed and loved and lost and found again deep in our hearts. We soldier up and fight for those little ones, for we hold all of the children who have ever been and will ever be inside of us and we promise to keep them safe. We feel the screams of our brothers and sisters tearing at us when they lose a little one and we pick them up and make them part of us too. We beg the light to make us as big as the universe so we can wrap our arms around them and stroke their hair, so they can remember that the darkness will never win no matter how strong it may seem.

We are the warriors for the light. Our bodies become tired and our souls become weary and sometimes we make ourselves forget. We look away when we see the light oozing through the cracks. We drink and dance and run and fuck and make and do and buy and try to forget who we really are….because who we really are can make us so tired. But no matter how hard we press our hands against our ears and how tightly we close our eyes, we know. We know that we were made to see the light in the places that seem to be made of blackness, to let ourselves be cracked open again and again to cut through the darkness. We know that we are here to be a mirror that flashes commandments of love into the abyss.

We are the warriors for the light. We look at the darkness all around us and we think about what causes our own darkness. We remember that when we sat in the dark we felt scared. We know that it’s easy to forget that there is any light in the world because darkness takes away our sight. We understand that like the fish that live the deepest underground caves that over time lose their ability to see, some of us do as well. We know that light is not about seeing, it is about being. Even in the darkest moments we close our eyes and reach out to our brothers and sisters to feel the warmth of the light as we hold out our hands to bring them back into the sun.

We are warriors for the light. We know that we can never rest. We understand that the darkness is strong- and that it is so easy to slide into fear. We know that if we give in for even a moment, the fear and anger will pull us under. In those moments when it is so tempting to close our eyes and let the velvety darkness wrap us up and smother us, so tempting to believe the honeyed words that it whispers into our ears “hate,difference,intolerance,disgust,power..” we crack ourselves open even wider and let the brilliance blind us,envelop us, grow larger, brighter, hotter than the sun. We join our light with others like us and shine it into places that has never seen anything but the dark.

We are the warriors for the light. We are made of faith. We are made of love. We are the universe. We are all of us…and we will never stop fighting.